find my way home
by closingdoors
Summary: Oneshot. 10 scenes of Castle/Beckett. "Her own fingers reach up, stroke a thumb across his smiling lips, watches the way the ring on her finger twinkles in the early morning sun." COMPLETE.


**find my way home**

_I wanna return but all you will do is turn to leave_,  
_If I can find my way home, will you take hold of me?_  
_ Cos I've been gone so long, __I can barely say,_  
_All I know is now I want to stay_,  
_Has it been too long since I went away?_  
_Cause I'm trying to find the words, but I can barely say_.  
- I Can Barely Say, The Fray

* * *

**Disclaimer: I'm currently wallowing in self pity because I'm ill. If I owned Castle, I'd be too happy to care about being ill.**

**Warning: Themes that some readers may find triggering/distressing.  
**

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1.**  
**

His fingertips ghost over the crook of her elbow, trail across her arm and down her back, swirling patterns into her skin. Barely there touches that make her hum with a smile, burrowing down into his insanely comfortable pillow.

He doesn't need to say a thing, he's never had to say a thing. She knows it, she's always known it, and she'll always remember it. _I love you, Kate, I love you._

Her own fingers reach up, stroke a thumb across his smiling lips, watches the way the ring on her finger twinkles in the early morning sun._  
_

_I love you, Castle, I love you._

* * *

2.

The hallway of the hospital is long, plain. Stark white walls. Nothing interesting to note, and he can't bring himself to create stories for the people milling around him. Not like he always would with her; and despite the fact that he's the writer in this relationship, she's always the one who comes up with the most creative stories.

Kate sleeps softly on his shoulder, a smile smothered with sleep.

_I love you, Kate, I love you._

Kate shifts slightly in her sleep, mumbles something incoherent before quietening again. She's adorable. But he really should wake her. That gash on her arm really does need stitches, and the sooner they see the doctor, the sooner they can go home and rest together. They do that now, he realizes with a smile on his face, and they'll always do so. If he has any say in it.

Besides, he's her one and done.

* * *

3.

Kate accepts the devastating news quietly, face completely composed as they sit across from the doctor.

He feels his own world crashing down around him, feels it in the drumbeat of his heart when he reaches out for her hand and she slides hers out from beneath him, like it burns.

The hospital smells of regret, and loss, and fear and grief and every other lost, lonely emotion that he can't bear to think of right now. When they walk through the hallways, back towards home, he tries not to think of them. He does.

Once they're out of the hospital, Kate lets the tears flow. He's not sure how she does it. Compose herself for that long. Because honestly, he's been a babbling mess ever since they heard the news, and he doesn't want to be- he wants to be strong for her.

As soon as the fresh air hits his face his own breakdown stops, makes him pause as he watches her bite her lip, empty eyes leaking with the loss of something they've never had.

"Kate-"

He reaches for her, but she steps away, stares at him like he's a stranger.

"I really thought-" She sounds so strangled, gasping for breath, "I really thought we could've done it. I really thought..."

Kate steps forwards into his arms, burying her face into his shoulder, fists his jacket in her trembling hands. Hangs onto him like he's dry land and she's drowning.

"I know." He murmurs, wishes that he could fix this. _I love you, Kate, I love you._

They go home and sit silently in the nursery that will never be filled.

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4.

He'll do anything for her to come home.

But she stays at the precinct, working through case after case and ignoring everything outside of that. Leaves him to be the one that clears out the nursery, paints it white and plain- Erasing this dream Kate believes they were so foolish to ever believe in.

Nobody knows. Ryan and Esposito wonder, but never comment on why Castle's hardly at the precinct anymore; why Beckett carries a shadow with her every day; why something's broken and they don't know how to fix it.

One day, she does come home. He's foolish enough to allow hope to rise within him, though he ought to know better when dealing with Kate Beckett.

He can see it in her eyes. Red with tears and sore around the edges.

She reaches down for the ring on her finger and presses it into his palm, visits the nursery they'd built together and he'd erased alone, packs her bags, and leaves.

_I love you, Kate, I love you._

He lets her go with a twist in his stomach, tears burning behind his eyes.

* * *

5.

There's no fight within him to get her back.

He misses her, but he doesn't want her to come home anymore.

It hurts too much.

* * *

6.

She doesn't mean to see him again.

Everything echoes with the loss, though. This apartment she lives in- too small, too quiet. Lacks energy and smiles and words and laser tag. The rides to the precinct too tiring, too draining and she aches for coffee but doesn't have him there to bring her it. Working through the case- so dull, never an interesting one anymore, nothing that spins his CIA or FBI or Ninja Assassin ideas.

But one day they're sent home early, after a particularly long and emotional case involving a serial killer, and she finds herself standing by Roy Montgomery's grave. Some part of her hates Castle for ever helping her survive a bullet to the chest. It would've hurt less than this does.

When she looks up, he's there, five feet away and watching her silently. It hurts. It hurts so much and she wants it to go away, she wants to stop remembering how much he loves her, she wants to stop imagining a small baby with blue eyes.

_I love you, Castle, I love you._

"I heard about the case on the news." He says quietly, reaching out for her.

Kate falls into him all over again.

She wants to stop remembering the three children hanging from the ceiling of the warehouse, the dead mother cradling her precious newborn that's barely been given the chance to live at all, the pregnant teenager stabbed in her own home.

She just wants to _stop._

* * *

7.

Alexis watches her silently, saying nothing, but Kate can tell she's judging her.

She wonders whether Castle had told the young girl about any of it. Despite their close bond, she doesn't find that this would be a think he'd share. She knows that she can't manage the words, can't turn and talk to anybody about it; in spite of his open nature, she doesn't imagine that he ever could either. They both carry around this dead weight inside of them as though it will make a difference.

Castle wraps a blanket around her shivering shoulders, holds her tightly against the painful images swirling through black in her mind.

Her mouth falls open to tell him she's sorry, but she can't.

* * *

8.

Her mouth is tentative beneath his, warm and soft and loving, gentle. Like she's afraid she'll break him. He's not quite sure that she won't.

It's been so _long,_ though. It hurts- it hurts _so _much- but he wants her to come home.

She wraps herself around him like she can comfort him, like she can soothe the pain.

"I love you." She breathes.

He doesn't say a word.

* * *

9.

Esposito and Ryan almost startle out of their skin when he turns up at the the precinct 322 days since she'd left him.

Kate turns to see what their eyes have bulged at, finds Castle standing behind her looking frightened. They both stay still for an infinitesimal moment, barely a blip that nobody would notice, but something passes between their eyes that feels a whole lot like acceptance and forgiveness.

He holds out a cup of coffee for her.

She feels him wrapped around her heart when she accepts.

* * *

10.

They lie wrapped up in one another, tangled limbs, stuttered breaths. Her hands run through his hair over and over, soothing him as he cries into her stomach.

"I don't know how to forget it. The- The look on your face when just weeks before you'd looked so _happy, _Kate." He sobs, clutching her like a lifeline.

"I can't forget it either." She murmurs, leaning down to press a tender kiss to the top of his head.

But he just jerks with a sob once again because there's nothing she can do to comfort this.

He is breaking her heart.

"I had all these plans. How I was gonna convince you to let me call them ridiculous names, dress them up in outrageously adorable outfits on Halloween and Christmas and- And we were gonna be a _family, _and Alexis would be a big sister, and you would've looked so, so gorgeous. I..."

"Shh." She whispers, forgetting how to breathe, lungs filling with the shadows of empty dreams.

He doesn't stop.

Her fingertips ghost over the crook of her elbow, trail across his arm and down his back, swirling patterns into his skin. _I love you, Castle, I love you._


End file.
